


Oh, Juck, it's a College Coffee Shop AU

by pleasekalemenow



Category: Mission to Zyxx (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bargie is still a ship, Book Club, Boss/Employee Relationship, COMING SOON: impending doom?, Fluff, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, Gen, JUST, Mild Angst, Multi, On-Again/Off-Again Relationship, WILL DAR JUCK A CORPSE? WHO KNOWS, beano is a cat, discussion of jucking, how many subplots can the author keep going?, just. fyi, read and find out, there's a lot going on here, wanted you to know that, wholesome bickering
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-07 05:56:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17954867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pleasekalemenow/pseuds/pleasekalemenow
Summary: Pleck Decksetter, C-53, and Dar all work under Nermut Bundaloy, the Assistant Manager at Bargie's Bridge, a coffee shop in a small town where they attend the Federated Academy. Will they ever get their collective shit together? Are any of their relationships going to go anywhere? Will Bargie ever successfully go on a date? Will Pleck ever make a friend who isn't paid to be nice to him? Is the world doomed to come to an end? Most importantly--WILL NERMUT EVER JOIN BOOK CLUB?Find out in this well-orchestrated shit-show!(title may change if I think of literally anything clever to change it to lmao)





	Oh, Juck, it's a College Coffee Shop AU

**Author's Note:**

> It is a period of devastating fanfic drought. Seeing that there are almost no fics for Mission to Zyxx, and egged on by the Zyxxcord, fanfic writer kishleylam takes it upon herself to remedy the situation by creating the obligatory coffee shop/college AU that must exist within every notable fandom. Time will tell if she's able to make it into anything worthwhile!

“You’ve gotta be jucking kidding, Pleck.” Dar leaned against the counter in front of the espresso machine as Pleck steamed some milk.

He shrugged meekly. “I know, I know--”

“This is the third week in a row!” Dar said, gesturing broadly enough to make one of the customers on the other side of the counter jump a bit. “You had to have _some_ time this week. It’s not like there was anyone you were hanging out with.”

“Okay, well, now that’s hurtful.”

C-53 turned his attention away from the customer whose order he was taking to the squabbling pair. “What are you two bickering about?”

Pleck poured two shots of espresso into the drink he was making. “Well, this week I--”

“Pleck here forgot to do the reading for book club again.” Dar took the drink from his hands, popped a lid on it, and set it on the counter. “Hark?”

“I did _not_ forget! I told you, I--”

“Ah, that’s me! Thank you so much.” A rather pompous-looking man stepped up to take the drink off the counter. “I must commend you on the speed with which you prepared my order.”

Dar flashed a toothy grin, ignoring Pleck’s stammering protests behind them. “Yep, no problem.”

Pleck pouted as the customer walked off with his drink. “I _told_ you, Dar, I was _busy_ this week.”

C-53’s servos whirred as he gave Pleck an unimpressed look. “Busy with what, Decksetter?”

“I...I had, you know--”

“I need you to make a large blended mocha, by the way.”

“Oh, right.”

C-53 scanned the room for a moment as Pleck set about fixing the drink, making sure no new customers were approaching before turning his attention more fully to the Tellurian. “Now, you were making up some story about a _thing_ you had going on this week?”

“I wasn’t making it up,” he insisted, “You all know that I recently got into the space--”

“Yes, we know,” Dar said with a groan.

“ _So,_ I’ve been spending a lot more time in meditation lately,” Pleck concluded cheerfully. He turned on the blender, which roared in the otherwise fairly quiet café.

C-53 whirred agitatedly as he waited for the blending to stop. When he didn’t elaborate as he began pouring the drink into a cup, he sighed. “Is...that...the whole reason?”

“Yep!” Lid. Counter. “Plank?”

Another Tellurian raised his hand as he approached the counter. “That’s me!”

“Your names are really similar,” mumbled Dar.

“Yeah, they’re pretty common names where I’m from.”

“Huh.”

“Pleck,” C-53 said, trying to pull his attention back to their conversation. “You do realize that taking time to meditate doesn’t really make you busy, right?”

Pleck scoffed at the suggestion. “Sure it does! Mediation is important. Getting in touch with the space is a great way to get in touch with yourself and those around you.”

“Oh my _Rod,_ you’ve gotten so much worse since you got into this weird cult-y shit.” Dar rubbed their eyelids in frustration.

“Hey! It’s not cult-y!”

“It’s kind of cult-y.” C-53 turned his attention back to the counter. No one had arrived since he turned away; it was always a bit slow in the evenings here at Bargie’s Bridge.

“How’s everything going out here?”

The crew jumped at the suddenness of the voice behind them.

“Oh, Nermut!” Pleck smiled sheepishly. “We’re, uh, we’re pretty good up here.”

Nermut sighed. “That’s a relief.”

“Hi, Nermie!” Dar said with a smile.

“Hey, Dar.” The Lird gave a small wave.

C-53 stepped away from the counter to face his manager. “You’ve certainly received a lot of incoming calls today. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s nothing too big.” Nermut waved a bit as if to swat away his concerns. “Bargie just got stood up, so she had to vent to _someone_.”

“Ah,” everyone responded in unison. This wasn’t the first time this had happened.

Nermut clapped his hands together and rubbed them against each other excitedly. “Anyway, catch me up! What’d I miss?”

“Not much, really,” C-53 intoned.

Dar lightly shoved Pleck, who yelped indignantly. “Pleck here blew off book club reading for ‘meditation.’”

Pleck huffed. “Why’d you put it in quotes like that?”

“I’m just saying, ‘meditation’ is only a few letters off from ‘ma--’”

“Oh, juck off,” he said good-naturedly.

Nermut hopped over to the espresso machine and, with great effort, prepped some grounds. “Must be nice to be at the comfort level with book club to just. Blow it off like that.”

Dar chuckled. “Oh, come on, Nermie--”

“No, no, I get it.” He leaned against the side of the machine and promptly slipped. His attempts to cover this fact were underwhelming. “Wouldn’t be coooool to have your manager in book club, I get that.”

“If we were concerned with being ‘cool,’ we probably wouldn’t be having a book club,” noted C-53.

“Right. Not concerned with coolness. Just with excluding your manager.”

“Come on, Nermie, we already had a _name_.” Dar crossed their arms. “‘The Underpaid Underlings Readin’ Bunch.’”

Nermut rolled his eyes. “That’s a _shitty_ name. Who even came up with that?”

Dar and C-53 simply pointed at Pleck.

“We lost a bet,” C-53 lamented.

Pleck pouted his lips. "I thought it was, I dunno, kind of a playful name."

"It's a pretty shitty name." Dar shrugged her shoulders slightly.

"Then why don't you just change it so I can join?" Nermut was practically vibrating. "Or, heck, keep the name-- _I'm_ underpaid, too!"

C-53's processor hummed faintly. "I don't know about that, Assistant Manager Nermut Bundaloy. You do make more Kroon per hour than we do, on top of your graduate stipend."

"I don't make that much more than you--wait, how do you know about the stipend? I don't think I told you that..."

"The details of the Federated Academy's graduate program are readily available online," the droid responded with a shrug.

Nermut couldn't help but get his feathers a bit ruffled, literally. "Well, I think--"

"Oh thank _Rod_ ," breathed Dar. "It's eight o'clock."

"Quittin' time!" Pleck went to clock out, but Dar butted in the way of the computer.

"I was talking," muttered Nermut.

"You're right." C-53 turned his attention back to the Lird. "You were saying?"

Nermut cleared his throat a bit anxiously. "Well, I was saying, I think...I think you all should let me in the book club."

"That's all you were saying?" C-53 seemed a bit surprised. "Well, Assistant Manager Nermut Bundaloy, we knew that already."

"Right." Nermut sighed. "Well, good work, today, team--"

"See ya, Nermie!" Dar shouted, already halfway out the door.

Pleck gave his boss a smile as he clocked out. "It was nice seeing you, Nermut. Tell Bargie I hope she feels better soon."

"Hopefully, I won't have to take any more calls from her in the near--" As if on cue, the phone at the back of the store began ringing. Nermut sighed. "--future. Well, I’d better take this. I’ll be seeing you two."

"Later, Nermut!"

"Goodbye, Asisstant Manager Nermut Bundaloy."

Nermut grumbled indignantly at the use of his full name and title as he went back to take the call, but didn't comment on it. He'd been down that road before. There was no convincing the droid to call him anything resembling casual.

Pleck lingered a bit as C-53 clocked out. The droid noticed this, and commented on it.

"Do you need something, Decksetter?"

"What? No, I just," Pleck said, shifting his weight around a bit from one foot to the other, "it's company policy to walk out to our vehicles in pairs."

"Neither one of us has a vehicle," C-53 noted. "And that policy is rarely, if ever, enforced."

Pleck toed the ground. "Yeah, well. We also live in the same dorm. Figured we could walk together."

C-53 examined him curiously. "You're a freshman, right?"

"Uh...yeah?"

"How are you making friends?"

"I uh--I don't know why you're asking me that." Pleck's face was even pinker than it usually was.

"Is that not a friendly question to ask?"

"I mean, I guess it is, it was just..." Pleck rubbed his arm self-consciously. "It was a bit of an odd segue, I guess."

C-53 turned his attention back to the computer and finished clocking out. "I did notice you didn't answer the question."

"I'm making friends _fine_ , thanks for asking."

"Glad to hear it." C-53 began making his way towards the door, Pleck following behind him. "I must confess I was a bit worried about you when you mentioned that all you'd been up to was meditation."

Pleck opened the door, holding it for the two of them. "I mean, that's not _all_ I've been up to."

"Oh? What else have you been up to? Oh, thank you." C-53 stepped outside.

"No problem. I, uh...you know. Had class."

"You had class?"

"...And a fair bit of reading."

"See, but nothing you've just described to me has a social component to it."

Pleck crossed his arms and chuckled uncomfortably. "I mean...I was a little too busy to hang out with people."

"Right, because you were meditating."

"Right!"

"A thing which can be rescheduled."

"I mean, I _guess_ , technically."

C-53, noticing that Pleck's body language had changed considerably, decided to let the subject slide. "So, do you think you'll be able to finish the book in time for tomorrow's meeting?"

"Uh, I mean, yeah! Why wouldn't I be able to?" Pleck shot him a lopsided grin.

C-53 shrugged. "I mean, the last few chapters are a bit wordy. They're also very heavy in terms of content. I found myself getting a bit emotional."

"Huh. I don't...I don't think I've gotten to that point with the characters just yet."

They were almost to their dorm at this point, but C-53 slowed almost to a stop. "How...much, exactly, have you read of the book?"

Pleck pursed his lips. "Um...I dunno, maybe, like, the first four chapters or so?

C-53's voice dropped gravely. "Pleck Decksetter, you aren't making the same mistake you made last week, are you?"

"I'm...not sure what you mean."

"You keep assuming books will be easy to read just because they're YA novels."

"I'm not--" Pleck chuckled. "I'm not assuming that! Really."

"Are you sure you're going to be able to have it read by tomorrow?" The pair came to a stop in front of their dorm.

Pleck waved off his question. "It's fine, I'll have it read by tomorrow. I don't have much going on tonight, anyway."

"Well, best of luck with that, Decksetter."

The two of them stood in front of the dorm for a moment--C-53 waiting expectantly for Pleck to swipe in, and Pleck smiling fondly with his thumbs in his belt loops.

"...Are you going to open the door, or...?"

"Oh! Right." Pleck swiped in, turning away to hide his blush, and C-53 pulled the door open.

"Oh, thank you, C-53."

"Of course, Decksetter."

"I'll uh...see you tomorrow?"

"See you tomorrow."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! I promise, I have some Actual Plot Plans for this guy. Hopefully you all enjoyed! See y'all again real soon, and in the meantime, JUCK the Federated Alliance!


End file.
